Chapter 1
The taxi crawled through Jardins and Helena watched S?o Paulo slide past without seeing it.
She was thinking about hands. Alessandra’s hands, all those years ago…
the strength, the way one of them had pinned both of Helena’s wrists above her head while the other gripped her hair.
The cheap mattress in the student apartment, the cold floor under her knees, the moment she’d stopped fighting and discovered that she could surrender.
That had been the beginning of who she’d become.
Just the beginning… because the woman who’d knelt on Alessandra’s floor at twenty hadn’t stayed there.
She’d stood back up. She’d taken everything that that night and the months that followed had taught her about what it felt like to let go and be truly cared for, and she’d carried it to the other side, understood it from the inside, and built herself into the woman who made others feel what Alessandra, and later a couple of others, had made her feel.
The dominance had always been there, she thought, waiting beneath the surface, but it was Alessandra’s hands that had shown her what it meant to hold someone’s trust, by first teaching her what it cost to give it.
Five years on and Helena was usually the one who gave the commands now.
The one who read people, who understood instinctively what they needed, who could take a woman apart with genuine care and put her back together stronger.
That was who she was. It hadn’t always been, but it was now…
predominantly, naturally, the axis around which her intimate life turned.
Nine months ago in Houston she’d been that woman entirely.
She’d seen a force of nature hiding a submissive side that she didn’t know existed, and Helena had drawn it out of her in a way that cherished and respected her dominant exterior while giving her the freedom to let go: the playful game at the bar, the restraints, the slow and glorious education of a woman who’d never known that she could surrender.
Caitlin on her knees, Caitlin bound and blindfolded, Caitlin gasping Minha Dona while Helena’s hands and mouth took her to places she’d never been.
That had been pure dominance, Helena at her most skilled and most certain, and it had been extraordinary.
Emphasis on had been extraordinary, Helena thought, because Caitlin was thousands of miles away and hadn’t messaged in six weeks.
Even before then she’d barely messaged at all, mostly professional and courteous and that was it.
She’d known when they’d parted after that incredible week that it would take time, even that it might never happen.
Caitlin had a lot to discover about herself, a lot of exploring to do, and Helena knew that she must give her all the space she needed to do it.
She just wished, though, that there was some way of knowing whether Caitlin, deep down, was pining for Helena in the same way that Helena was pining for her.
The past tense, to Helena’s ongoing regret, was the only honest one.
Helena shook her head when she realised the taxi had arrived, paid the driver, and stepped out into the warm night air.
Enough, get back into the present. She had friends waiting, champagne to drink, and a city that wouldn’t stop moving just because one person in it was stuck nine months in the past.
***
The rooftop bar was fourteen floors above the street, open to the S?o Paulo sky, the city’s skyline a wall of light on every side. Helena took the lift, walked through the door, and spotted Isabella waving a bottle from the booth she’d reserved.
“Finally!” Isabella thrust a glass into her hand before she’d even sat down. “I’ve been here twenty minutes. Fernanda hasn’t even arrived yet and I’ve had to talk to strange men.”
“You love talking to strange men.”
“I love having the option. The difference matters a great deal.” Isabella kissed her on both cheeks and pulled her down onto the curved banquette. “You look amazing by the way. New top?”
Helena glanced down at herself… the cream cropped top, the high-waisted dark grey trousers, the heels. She’d taken her time getting ready and had changed her outfit several times. “Yeah.”
“It’s good. Very you. Sexy but not trying too hard.”
“That’s pretty much the definition of trying too hard.” Helena took a sip of the champagne. It was good, as always. “How’s your week been?”
“Endless. A photoshoot that overran, a client who changed her mind about the entire summer collection, and my mother sent me an article about egg freezing. No message. Just the link.” Isabella shuddered. “Yours?”
“Busy. Work is ramping up. But good busy.”
“And how’s Juliana?”
Helena smiled. “She’s good. You know how it is. Casual. Fun.”
“Fun as in fun, or fun as in you’re deflecting?”
“Fun as in fun, Isa. We’re friends who enjoy each other. It works.” Helena glanced around the filling bar. “She might come out later actually. She’s having dinner with Mariana first.”
“Ah, the sister connection.” Isabella raised her glass. “To unconventional arrangements.”
“To minding your own business.”
“Never.”
They fell into the normal rhythm of their Friday nights…
the conversation flowing between work and gossip, sometimes overlapping when it came to their social circle.
Fernanda arrived with more friends, the booth filled up, the music got louder, the champagne bottles seemed to multiply of their own accord.
Helena let herself sink into it, the joy of people she’d known for years, the comfort of her city, her places, her people. She was present, she was enjoying herself, and she was not, she told herself definitively, thinking about a woman in Houston. Not at all.
She was on her third glass when she felt a pair of arms slip around her from behind and a mouth press against her ear.
“Guess who?”
Helena smiled. “The only person who’d ambush me from behind in public.”
Juliana came around the banquette and dropped into the seat next to Helena, her seemingly untameable hair bouncing, her eyes alive with whatever she and Mariana had been drinking over dinner. She was wearing a dress that Helena hadn’t seen before, very short, very fitted, and very, very sexy.
“You look great,” Helena said. “New dress?”
“Mariana made me buy it. Apparently I need to stop dressing like a student.” Juliana stole Helena’s champagne glass and took a sip. “She’s not wrong.”
“Where is my sister?”
“Talking to some guy at the door. She’ll be in eventually.” Juliana handed back the glass and leaned closer, her voice dropping below the music. “I missed you this week. It’s been ages.”
“Five days isn’t ages.”
“Five days is absolutely ages when you’re used to seeing someone at least twice a week.” Juliana’s hand found Helena’s knee under the table, the relaxed physical intimacy that said everything about how long they’d been sleeping together now. “I had ideas about tonight. If you’re interested.”
“What kind of ideas?”
“The kind where you come back to mine and do whatever you want with me.” Juliana’s grin was wicked. “I’ve been practising being patient like you asked me to. I want to test it.”
Helena laughed. This was what she liked about Juliana…
the playfulness, the directness, the complete absence of games.
With Juliana everything was on the surface and nothing was complicated.
And their dynamic was one of the healthiest Helena had had as a result: open, honest, Juliana had that strength to be both dominant and submissive that few people had.
Caitlin had had it right from the start, even if she didn’t know, Helena had it now but hadn’t at first, Alessandra had never had it which was why they’d only lasted a few months after that revelatory night.
It guided Helena’s whole philosophy, that the true dominant was the one submitting, that their submission was a gift to whoever they allowed to dominate them that came from their inner strength, that the dominant had to respect and nurture the submissive’s strength outside of the dynamic.
Above all else, a dominant-submissive relationship had to be a meeting of equals, one where one party temporarily ceded control to the other…
including, of course, sometimes switching if both of them wanted that.
“I might be interested,” Helena said, matching Juliana’s grin. “Get yourself a drink first. I’m not rushing.”
“See?” she said, finishing Helena’s drink instead. “I haven’t even got my own drink yet and I’m practising patience already.”
Helena shook her head, laughing. “I think you might have missed the point…”
***
They spent another couple of hours at the bar, Juliana slotting into the group easily, unsurprising since she’d known them all for years too.
Mariana arrived eventually, shooting Helena a look that said I know exactly what’s going to happen later between my sister and my best friend, and I’m very deliberately choosing not to think about it, and sat herself at the far end of the booth.
Helena appreciated her sister’s discretion, genuinely.
Mariana knew that Helena and Juliana were sleeping together, Helena had told her directly as had Juliana a few days later, but the details were carefully kept separate.
Suffice it to say that Mariana had an inkling that Helena’s love life could be unorthodox, and she knew that Juliana was exploring some things about herself, but that was all she needed or wanted to know, which was entirely fair. Some boundaries were worth maintaining.
Sometime after midnight, Helena caught Juliana’s eye and inclined her head towards the door.
Juliana caught her meaning immediately and smiled, straightening slightly.
Despite her playful nature, Juliana had practised patience perfectly since she’d arrived, making it clear that she wanted Helena but keeping it under control.